Steven Millhauser's Invasion From Outer Space

Imagine that you were told that there was going to be a alien invasion and that it was going to be that day, well that is exactly what had happened in the story Invasion From Outer Space. In the story the characters were all lead to believe that they were going to be under a alien attack. Shortly before one a yellow dust started to fall and the city went crazy but I meant nothing at all. In the story Steven Millhauser focused deeply on descriptions and figurative language the purpose of this is to set the mood, set the setting, and to build suspense. In this story it will prove my point that his descriptions and figurative language are there to setup to set the mood, setting, and to build the suspense.
“The story broke a little after ten in

Many of us were still at lunch, others were already outside, standing motionless on the streets and the sidewalks, gazing up. There were shouts and cries, arms in the air, a wildness of gesturing, pointing. And, sure enough, something was glittering, up there in the sky, something was shimmering, in the blue air of summer---we saw it clearly, whatever it was.” In this quote there is vivid descriptions to show the setting. You can tell that the setting is outside because they are looking up into the air you can also see that it said in the quote that they were outside. In part of the quote the descriptions make it very clear to me that they are outside, the quote reads, “others were already outside, standing motionless on the streets and the sidewalks, gazing up.” In this very detailed paragraph it is showing me through the descriptions that they were outside and people were looking at the sky to see what was going on. You can think that the descriptions show nothing but, without the descriptions you could not be able to see what the author is thinking. I would just say that they were outside! The description are putting us at the scene outside waiting for the alien attack to